| Stephen Joshua Sondheim is a famous American musical theater composer and lyricist who has received multiple awards for his drama,music,film and television accomplishments including an Academy Award,and multiple Tony Awards and Grammy Awards.He is both a distinguished lyricist as well as a composer,which is a rare feat in musical theater.He is the founder of the "concept musical." This thesis analyzes his representative concept musical Company,and uses it to discuss the characteristics of concept musicals.This thesis also compares and contrasts the structure of the music and dramatic structure i.e."musical and dramatic structure" of various kinds of musical theater,and examines the importance of structure in musical theater as well as the possibility of new structural forms.This paper explores the changes Sondheim underwent during his creative process and defines the terms"concept musical," "book musical," and "musical and dramatic structure." Along with analyzing the musical and dramatic structure of Company,I will also analyze the musical and dramatic structure of Spring in a Small Town-the original musical I composed during my Masters of Composition program,in order to compare and contrast the differences between a concept musical versus a book musical as regarding musical and dramatic structure.A clear structure is extremely important when it comes to composing a musical,and the right musical and dramatic structure needs to be employed in order to enhance the story or create characters.Even if there are different genres,there are still similar guiding principles of composition-for instance,employing music to tell the story,or creating opportunities for the score to drive plot development.In conclusion,I will summarize my analyses with theories and insights regarding how to compose structure for musical theater. |
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